Doldrums know no bounds as Astros bow to Braves

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Tipping point: The sixth inning did it as the Astros stranded the bases loaded in their half and the Braves used a wild pitch and Paul Janish’s two-run single to turn a 1-1 tie into a 4-1 lead.

On the mound: After Bud Norris left with four runs allowed in six innings, Xavier Cedeno and Rhiner Cruz didn’t help matters with their run apiece in an inning apiece. The gap between the most reliable and least reliable relievers is as defined as ever even after the trades.

At the plate: Missed chances told the story as the Astros hit into a double play, ran into another one, went 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position and left nine on base in a game in which they scored one.

Under the radar: Yes, Bud Norris wasn’t crushed and his lament that the groundballs just got through is accurate, but the strikeouts also stopped. He struck out seven of the first 15 hitters he faced and none of the last 12, leaving him vulnerable to batted ball misfortune.

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ATLANTA — Anyone under a certain age knows the Astros for one thing amid the changing personnel, ballparks and uniforms: There’s always a run in them.

Whether in good years — the 2004 and 2005 NLCS and World Series runs come to mind — or in bad, the second half always had you believing (or at least had you tricked into thinking) that something good was on the way.

But as things have bottomed out, that sense is fading away. There was no run in 2011, and after the Astros traded away a boatload of talent at the deadline, there’s nothing to give the impression that this year will bring a run like the one that followed the export of Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt in 2010.

Wins have become isolated incidents, not signs of a turning point or the start of any trend. And one road win this series proved to be just another exception and not the start of a run as the Astros lapsed back into their losing ways Sunday, falling 6-1 to the Braves.

They still have not won back-to-back road games in the same series all year, failing to do so since July 27 and 28, 2011, at St. Louis with Michael Bourn and Hunter Pence in the lineup. On the season, they are now 36-73 overall and 11-46 on the road. And it didn’t take much to get there.

“The game really came down to that sixth inning,” manager Brad Mills said in a quiet clubhouse afterward. “They were able to get the hit, and we weren’t.”

After the Astros faltered twice with multiple men in scoring position, Bud Norris faltered, in an otherwise outstanding pitchers’ duel with Kris Medlen in a tie game in the bottom of the sixth.

Norris allowed one-out singles to Chipper Jones and Freddie Freeman but got an infield fly from Dan Uggla to close in on an escape. David Ross, who earlier homered the opposite way, reached on an infield single on which Marwin Gonzalez really had no good play, and it was down to Norris versus Paul Janish.

Except it wasn’t. Norris threw a wild pitch that went back to the screen, allowing Jones to score. Then the Houstonian Janish singled home the other two runners.

“I feel like I haven’t been getting out of jams the whole year,” Norris said. “It’s been a long one for me, unfortunately.”

The Astros had their chances to get back in it. They had two in scoring position in the sixth after tying the game on a Justin Maxwell double, but a three-pitch strikeout of pinch hitter Matt Downs and a bases-loaded groundout from pinch hitter J.D. Martinez killed the rally as the Astros sent the righties up to counter Braves lefty Jonny Venters.

“I felt real comfortable with Downsie facing him there being able to get a ball in the air, and J.D. has been swinging the bat so well against lefties,” Mills said. “Pinch-hitting, I know it’s a different story, but we felt real good with those guys up there.”

Two more baserunners were wasted in the eighth with a Brett Wallace strikeout, and by then the Braves were pulling away, leaving the Astros’ last road win as just an isolated event in a continuously frustrating season.